* The torrent sites don't have to spend money producing content. If they had to actually make the content they were promoting, would they be making a profit?
* Even if it were possible to make money under this model, it would be much less than the big media companies are making now. Why would they switch?
You cannot make sure it would be much less money. What we can be sure is that A) megaupload and others are/were making tons of money that old media wish they were doing instead. And that B) the old media's current business model is decaying, flawed and doomed from existence. They would switch because or else they'll disappear.
Well, they're not making money from these people anyway, why not find a way to monetize them? You don't cease your current distribution practices, you are merely creating an alternate way to monetize those people who you viewed as "stealing" in the first place.
I'd happily pay $20 or so to be able to download/stream a season of it. But I suspect there's not enough people like me in the foreign-to-them markets who would pay the money to make it worth their while to get it on to iTunes (or similar), write some press releases, update their website to say it's available, etc.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...